


takes care of futurism (more or less)

by misandrywitch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 'Swawesome Santa, Casual Drug Use, Friends to Lovers, Get Together, Graduation, Nonbinary Character, Summer, casual alcohol use, nonbinary lardo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:52:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5396651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misandrywitch/pseuds/misandrywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t know if he believes in true love, but he does believe in loving people, and in any case he’s willing to at least give it a shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	takes care of futurism (more or less)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wyntera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyntera/gifts).



> wyntera asked for shitty/lards with some angst & a happy ending, & who am i to say not to writing MORE shitty/lardo?? i'd describe this as one part character study, two parts unnecessary pining, a dash of questionable alcohol consumption habits with a shot of one horrible awful extended family & all the conflicts that come with it, served over the realization that you're mad in love with your best friend. i hope you like it!
> 
> the details abt jack & bits getting together are obviously not exact but i did write this before the comic updated so I WAS NOT THAT FAR OFF!!!! hey ho i told u so

The last year of Shitty’s undergrad degree is simultaneously the best and worst year of his life, and the fact of that contradiction is so unsurprising that it doesn’t even shake him. By now, he’s pretty good at handling contradictions. It comes with the territory. Everyone has things that they both are and aren’t at the same time, and that idea used to bother him a lot. It bothers him less now, mostly. It’s an idea he likes, being defined by the tension between what you are, what you should be, how people think of you and how you think of yourself.

Sometimes Shitty worries about becoming someone only in opposition to who you’re supposed to be.

He’s not great at quantifying things, keeping them organized and separate and rational, and looking back on his senior year is less like flipping through photographs Jack Zimmermann style and more like ideas and arcs with value judgments, symbols both smaller and larger than they are. Hockey, great. Living in the Haus with his team, swawesome. The fact that everything is tinged with this sort of hysteric urgency because of the big word at the end starting in G, less swawesome. That big word itself, scary as shit. Jack, the best. The NHL, fucking proud. His grandparents’ ultimatum about his hair, the pits. Harvard, fuck if he knows. Lardo--

 

Well.

* * *

Shitty would be lying if he said he hadn’t imagined in his head how graduation ideally would play out, and when he thinks about it, it happens something like this:

First, his dad’s car breaks down. Not in a way that injures or mains anybody, but in a way that’s inconvenient, expensive and time-consuming, meaning that neither he or the grandparents he’s driving down from Boston manage to make it to Samwell. His grandfather’s Bentley is in the shop. His grandmother won’t ride in taxis. Unavoidable, really. Since this is a fantasy they go all the way to just cancel their two-week long trip to the Great Diamond Island in Maine, which is supposed to be a graduation gift but is shaping up to be a two-week long opportunity to completely ruin his liver or contemplate excommunicating himself from his family for real. In the rain. Because it never ever stops fucking raining there even in May.  

As a direct result of this, Shitty doesn’t have to cut his hair. He’s been putting it off because it feels a lot less like a haircut and a lot more like some dreaded test of real-life-adulthood that he has to pass before he’s really allowed to belong to the world of People-Attending-Harvard-Law. He’s pretty bitter about it. But, no grandparents, no haircut, no problem.

Third, he gets to have brunch. This step isn’t required beyond the fact that Shitty just really likes brunch. Ideally, he also has time to smoke a bowl. Really really ideally Jack smokes up with him, which will never actually happen in real life because Jack is Jack, but a man can dream, right?

Nobody makes him wear pants or a tie under his robe. The ceremony is only ten minutes long, and the weather isn’t too hot. He gets his diploma, tells his mom he loves her, raises a middle finger in the direction of Boston where his dad’s still stuck in his garage, gets high fives from the team, hugs Jack who is now shirtless, because practically nothing compares to hugging Jack while Jack is shirtless. Then he finds Lardo.

Shitty has something great to say to Lardo, something funny but also poignant, something that manages to be both charming and disarming but also maybe a little bit sexy. Shitty can’t imagine exactly what this would be when he pictures this, but he does know it’s perfect. Lardo laughs, smiles at him, eyes bright and soft. The sun is out. All signs point to yes. Lardo kisses him, and it’s a good first kiss, not an awkward one, their teeth don’t bump and he doesn’t have bad breath.

They make out in the grass and even though campus is busy it feels like they’re the only two people for a million miles. Jack and Bitty are holding hands in the background. The Supreme Court legalizes marriage equality. Bernie Sanders gets elected president. When nobody’s looking they slip off back to the Haus to drink champagne and have sex on the bed that’s been Shitty’s for the last 3 years and will now, going forward, be Lardo’s.

It’s a fantasy, alright? It’s pretty unrealistic, obviously, duh, he doesn’t expect it to happen anything like that. But he hopes it happens a little bit like that, maybe, even just in part. One part. The Lardo part.

Which doesn’t have to happen like that either, really, and Shitty supposes confessing his feelings to Lardo in a crowd that includes his mother and the president of Samwell and probably Wayne Gretzky isn’t the smartest move. He’d settle for just the two of them, on the roof deck or in his bedroom or whatever. It hardly matters, really, as long as it happens, because this in some way feels like Shitty’s last chance to tell Lardo how he feels about them, and in this as in everything else Samwell and college related he feels like he’s running out of time.

 

 

 

 

What actually happens isn’t anything like that. At all. Which, considering how this whole damn year has played out, isn’t surprising.

 

 

 

 

Shitty screws up his eyes and sucks in a sharp breath, his jaw clamped so tight it’s making all the muscles in his neck ache as he feels cold metal touch the back of his neck.

“Unclench,” Lardo says as they maneuver around the bathroom counter to stand behind where Shitty is sitting on the rim of the tub. “I’m not gonna stab you.”

He can’t even bring himself to grate out the almost obligatory “that’s what she said” line to follow that, which says volumes about this whole entire day.

“Okay,” Lardo’s voice is pretty calm considering the circumstances, and Shitty is grateful for that, and for them, and that nobody else is around to interrupt this. “Are you ready?”

“No,” Shitty says, and Lardo sighs.

“Fine,” they say. “I’m just gonna do it. Like yanking off a bandaid, right? Please stop wincing, I’ve done this enough that I’m not gonna completely fuck it up.”

Shitty can’t stop wincing, and he can’t stop holding his breath until he hears the smooth metal sound of scissors through hair. He can imagine that his head feels lighter already, because Lardo just lopped off everything past where it was pulled up into a ponytail in one fell swoop. They drop his discarded hair, still caught in what he was considering a pretty impressive ponytail, into the sink, and he watches it go.

He sighs, and Lardo smacks him on the shoulder.

“Hold still,” they say. “If you don’t want this to look like a complete fuckup.”

“Maybe you should just buzz it,” Shitty says, then shakes his head, then wiggles sideways to avoid Lardo’s hand on the side of his head again because of his movement. “No, my grandfather would have a field day. It was bad enough having to listen to him tell me I look like I’m running from the draft. Don’t need him saying I look like I belong in the military. Fuck.”

“Stop wiggling,” Lardo says, and sinks their nail into his shoulder so he sits up straight again. “Unless you’re not attached to your left ear, then go ahead and keep at it.”

“You might as well,” Shitty says glumly.

“Shits.” The pace of Lardo’s clipping picks up as they start trimming the hair around his ears. “It’ll grow back.”

“Thank you, Cersei fucking Lannister,” Shitty says. He can feel, rather than hear, Lardo giggle, because their arm is resting on his shoulder. “I know it will, it’s dumb. But.”

“I know,” Lardo says.

“It’s what it means,” Shitty says heavily. There’s trimmed hair in the tub and he stares at it forlornly. “Cause I’m doing it for them, yknow, not for me.”

“Fascists,” Lardo agrees, then switches on their electric clippers.

“Thanks for,” Shitty starts to shrug then stops himself and concentrates on not moving, “doing this. Holster volunteered, but considering Jack’s haircut I don’t really trust him. And I’ll be fucked if I’m spending money on this bullshit.” He pauses. “And I couldn’t get a fucking hair appointment anyway. People wanna get haircuts before graduation. Who knew?”

“Procrastinator,” Lardo says. “You’re welcome. Okay, I think I’m done.” They step back and Shitty stands up, shakes some of the discarded hair from his shoulders into the tub before stepping out of it. The Haus had been early morning quiet, but he can hear people talking downstairs, Bitty and probably the Zimmermann’s. He hears some laughter that’s distinctively Bad Bob’s.

He blinks at his reflection in the mirror above the sink for a minute, runs his hands over Lardo’s handiwork. They did a pretty nice job and it’s not the shortest haircut he’s ever had or anything, but it’s not what it was.

“Jesus,” he says. “I look like I, fuck, own a Lexus and pay a mortgage on a condo that my wife doesn’t know about.”

“Harvard nerd,” Lardo says, opening the door from the bathroom into Shitty’s bedroom. Shitty studies himself glumly for another minute. He does look like that, clean cut and pulled together. Without the mustache Shitty guesses he’d probably look about ten years old.

“Your mom texted me,” Lardo says from his room “Says she’ll be here in ten and you need to charge your phone.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shitty turns off the bathroom light and follows them out into his room, which is in wild disarray. His dress clothes and gown are draped over his chair and as he’s picking them up Jack sticks his head around the door, nodding to Lardo.

“Hi--- oh.” Jack says. He’s dressed up already, his own hair slicked back neatly, and he looks like a goddamn supermodel like he tends to when he’s wearing anything other than running shorts.

“Yeah,” Shitty says. “Shoving it all under my cap wasn’t gonna cut it, so hello million dollar makeover.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jack says, and even for Jack it comes out pretty doubtful.

“Hey,” Lardo says. “Watch your words when the artist is in the room.”

“No! I mean,” Jack frowns. “It’s a nice haircut. It’s just. Short?”

Lardo laughs, pushing past him into the hall. “Bits downstairs?” They ask. “I gotta go change. I’ll see you guys at the ceremony then.”

“Bye, Lards,” Shitty wishes he had something else to say, but they’re already going down the stairs. He turns back to Jack, who still seems to be searching for the words to describe Shitty’s transformation.

“You look--” Jack pauses. “Tidy,” is what he settles on.

“Stick to what you’re good at, Zimmermann,” Shitty says. He crosses the room and drapes his arms over Jack’s shoulders. Jack raises an eyebrow.

“What’s that?”

“Playing hockey and looking pretty. You’re a weak ass liar but I fucking love you anyway-- oh, uh, hi Bob.” Jack’s parents have come up the stairs behind them, and Bob waves.

“Shitty,” Jack puts his hand on Shitty’s shoulder. “Please, please go put on some pants.”

Shitty sighs. “For you, brother, today of all days, alright.”

 

 

 

 

His mom says “Oh, honey,” when she she sees his hair, in the heavy, conflicted kind of voice she always uses to talk about the other half of the family.

“Yeah,” Shitty says, in lieu of any sort of hello. She’s standing at the door to his bedroom and is really great about not saying a word about all the shit he still has to put into boxes. His mom is wearing a skirt with a particularly psychedelic print, purples and greens, and has her hair up. She looks nice. He’s fighting with his tie, which is being really damn stubborn like he didn’t spend almost every day of four years of his young adulthood tying one and then tugging it off as soon as he had the chance.

“You can sit with Lards and Bitty and Jack’s parents,” Shitty says, scowling at the offending strip of fabric. “So you don’t have to sit next to them. If you wanna.”

“Probably will,” she says. “Though, I don’t know. A fistfight would liven this ceremony up a bit, what do you say?”

“I feel like I’m obligated as a soon-to-be-diploma-holding-adult to tell you not to sock Grandma,” Shitty says. “But my money’s on you.”

“Here,” his mom says, and she steps over a pile of hockey equipment and unfolded socks with the kind of braveness that comes from someone who is completely unafraid of unwashed clothes of any kind because of a long familiarity. “Stop messing with it. It’ll get wrinkled.” She smacks his hand out of the way to grab at his tie, then frowns. “Nevermind,” she says. “I’m shit at tying these, you better just tackle it.”

“Oh great,” Shitty shoves the tail of the tie through the loop of fabric, straightens it out. “Supportive motherly material, you.”

His mom tweaks the corner of his mustache a little, and smiles. “Are the Bluth Family Lite on their way, then?”

“Yup. Left their hotel a half hour ago. I can’t believe you abandoned me with them last night. We went to this awful place, real posh, and Grandma sent back every fucking thing she ordered. Even her damn glass of wine. I kept saying I had to piss so I could dip to the bar in the back and take shots.”

“Did you puke on Katherine?”

“Sadly, no. I’m saving that for this evening so you can witness it.”

“Disappointing,” Shitty’s mom shakes her head. “Who raised you?”

“Wolves,” Shitty says, glancing at his reflection in the mirror. His reflection, short hair, coordinated tie, cufflinks, stares back. He makes a face. “That you married into.”

“Should have seen that one coming, I know.” his mom says. “Well, let’s gird our loins then, shall we?”

“Leave your loins out of this please,” Shitty says, and he follows her out of his bedroom with his cap and gown draped over his arm, shutting the door behind him. “God knows they’ve caused you enough trouble.”

“Watch yourself, mister,” his mom says. “I was about to tell you how proud of you I am but, you know, I think I take it back after that.”

 

 

 

 

Shitty’s grandmother clutches at his ears like she’s never seen ears before. “Oh, Bernard,” she says. “You look so handsome!” Shitty wiggles out of her grip by kissing her on the cheek. His grandparents, Aunt Jill and Uncle Henry and the three cousins who come with them (Marty, Gloria and Chris) and his dad had arrived the day before last, and this morning they’re joined by Aunt Katherine, Uncle Milo and their collection of second marriages and step-kids. Shitty isn’t honestly entirely sure why they all decided to come, seeing as he definitely missed Gloria’s graduation and has no intention of attending Chris’s, but he supposes it has a little something to do with the fact that they all want to tell him “I Told You So.” The general impression they give off is a collection of attractive, Chanel-smelling vultures in nice ties, and it’s nine in the morning but Shitty is tired to his bones.

“Yes, yes, thanks, alright,” Shitty says. “Your hotel still mediocre or was it better after you talked to the manager?”

His grandmother makes a disgruntled noise in her throat and picks up her string of complaints about the staff of the Marriott they’re staying in. They’re all crammed into the Haus kitchen, which is a step up from the Haus living room in cleanliness but unfortunately means that none of them are likely to accidentally pick up a mold or infectious disease from brushing up against the couch. Even so, Katherine is eyeing the collection of misplaced items Bitty meticulously sticks up on the corkboard with disdain. Collectively, they all look like they’re wishing they were drunk and somewhere else other than here, which is pretty much how Shitty feels too.

“Well,” his grandmother says. “This is.” Shitty thinks for a minute she’s going to just give up completely finding a word to describe the Haus, but then she picks it up again. “This has some charm, in its way. I can imagine that living here would have given you quite the experience, certainly. A different perspective, perhaps.”

“We tried to tell him that we have the money to pay for an apartment,” Shitty’s dad puts his hand down on the countertop, then picks it up again. Shitty feels a little bit obligated to go to war for Bitty’s kitchen counters, which are cleaner at this moment than they’ve ever been before in their lifespan. So what if they’re not marble. The Haus even has all its doors, so, really, Shitty can’t see what the fuck they’re all turning up their noses about. “But he insisted.”

“Didn’t see you complaining when it meant you got to refurbish your yacht,” Shitty says, and his mom elbows him.

“The whole team lives here,” his mom says. “And living somewhere with character is part of the whole college experience, isn’t it? I definitely remember your first apartment--”

Shitty’s dad sighs and opens his mouth, and it’s around then that Bitty, bowtie and all, comes downstairs, which makes Shitty about ready to go to war for all five feet six and a half inches of him. Bitty’s a lot of things, and one of them is good with grandmothers, and he manages to waylay all of them with a conversation about croissant pastry for a few minutes before they realize they probably should get going.

“I’ll call you after it’s done,” Shitty says to his dad. “Jack and I will walk over in a minute and we’ll just meet you after the ceremony. Did you make dinner reservations?”

“Your grandmother picked a place,” his dad says. “Thought that was wisest. I’ll ask Milo to run her back to the hotel right after this is over. I’ve already had to reign her in once this morning and honestly I don’t have the time.”

“Let me guess,” Shitty says. “Homophobia?”

His dad just sighs in a way that indicates Shitty’s guess is right. There’s nothing like joint horror at the comments of the elderly to unite father and son, Shitty thinks. It’s almost touching, or something.

His dad’s cell phone rings a half a second later, and he picks it up, then yells, the slams it down again. Moment ruined.

“Will they serve drinks, do you think?” Aunt Katherine asks as she walks out of the kitchen.

“It’s a graduation ceremony,” his cousin Gloria says. “Hardly.”

“Can we stop for drinks first?”

“Where? A brewpub? I don’t think so.” The door closes behind them and Bitty coughs.

“Oh gosh,” he says, quintessential Southern charm barely covering up what Shitty is reading as shock, or disgust. He coughs. “Your cousin’s dress looks nice,” he says, floundering.

“I think it’s Gucci,” Shitty says glumly. “Kinda steep for a graduation ceremony, but then again it’s been on her agenda to reel Jack in for years.”

“Oh,” Bitty says, half a second too slowly, and Shitty kicks himself a little.

“Pretty sure he doesn’t remember her name,” he says, and nothing about Bitty’s face actually changes but Shitty can feel him relax anyway.

“I can’t believe this is it,” Bitty says. “This year went so fast.” He frowns in the direction of the front door.

There are a lot of things Shitty could say, some about Jack, at least one about Lardo, but he doesn’t. He settles for, “You okay, Bits?”

Bitty shrugs, and it’s the most depressing shrug Shitty’s ever seen in his life, so he wrestles him into a hug for the hell of it.

* * *

Graduation, Shitty thinks, is an overrated experience. He makes it about twenty minutes before he’s amending his entire convoluted fantasy to one where he just gets to stay in bed and speak to nobody.

He and Jack haul their asses across campus and despite the fact that they intend to be twenty minutes early end up getting there one minute early because Shitty almost forgets his cap. They wait. They get shepherded through a few hallways. They wait some more. They’re forced to alphabetize and Shitty watches Jack’s head vanish towards the XYZ’s, finds himself standing next to somebody he’s never talked to in his life.

“Aren’t you on the hockey team?” the guy, bespectacled with freckles, says.

“Brah,” Shitty agrees.

“So that was Jack Zimmermann? Is he as wild as everyone says he is?”

Shitty gives him a dirty look for a while as they wait, then they’re all shuffled through another hallway and towards the stage and around here the actual ceremony begins. There’s music. There’s a speaker, who says a lot of pseudo-inspirational shit about achieving your dreams and working through adversity, lah dee fucking dah. The guy sitting next to Shitty keeps waving into the crowd. Shitty gives him a dirty look again.

And then they read off names, one by one. Being smack dab in the middle of the K’s is the pits, because there isn’t quite enough time to really zone out like there would be down at the T’s or the Y’s.

He can hear the team cheer when they call his name, one initial Knight because he had been asked like two months ago to complete that paperwork and never did and apparently not having a first name doesn’t prevent you from graduating. That’s a small satisfaction. The sound of Holster’s air horn is another one.

Shitty shakes the hand of Samwell’s president, and of the Dean of Students, and he’s handed a maroon envelope with a heavy piece of paper in it, and someone takes his picture at the bottom of the stairs at the other side of the stage.

And that’s it. Four years of his life, the weirdest parties he’ll ever go to, the best people he’ll ever meet, the least sleep he’ll ever get until law school anyway, all neatly summarized on a thick piece of cream-colored paper printed with the words “Bachelor’s of Science in  Political Science.” Thanks for showing up, have a nice day, see you later.

When Jack crosses the stage the team cheers again, loud and clear, and Shitty cheers loudest of all.

The rest is all kind of a blur of friend’s hugs, relative hugs, a hundred thousand photographs. Bitty cries. Bitty, Shitty guesses, has been crying since the ceremony started. He complains about the fact that he’s crying but allows himself to be photographed anyway. Bob and Alicia snap about a thousand photos of Shitty and Jack together, and he poses with every cousin, and his mom, and his dad, and somewhere in there his grandfather says he’s proud even though he chose this school over Harvard, god forbid, and it’s about at that point that Shitty’s mom gets her arm around his middle and pulls him out of their midst and sticks a joint in his hand.

Sometimes you just need your damn mother to make things better, Shitty thinks, as he smokes it as rapidly as he can bent mostly double so it looks like he’s tying his shoe, really really hoping that nobody decides to look his direction when he’s in the middle of breaking the law.

When someone steps up to them he just about shits himself. All he sees is a pair of black shoes in his line of sight, and someone coughs a little delicately. He half considers just closing his fist around the still-lit joint as he straightens up, and in the process he practically smacks his head right into Lardo’s shoulder. He almost knocks himself over in his surprise, and grabs at the nearest thing to him to stop from falling over, which happens to be Lardo’s abdomen.

“Easy there,” Lardo says, laughing. They put their hand on his shoulder and he can feel it, small but firm and warm, through the dumb robe and his dress clothes. Shitty knows he isn’t much of a blusher but he feels his whole face get hot anyway. He looks up at them, and they stare at each other for a minute, faces a few inches apart.

“Steady on, college graduate,” Lardo says softly, and then loop their free hand under Shitty’s left arm to pull him upright. Shitty let them.

“What’s the fun in that?” he says. The corner of Lardo’s mouth moves up, a little motion just between the two of them, and Shitty watches it, thinks about what it would take to close that gap. Half a foot of space, maybe. An almost impossible distance.

“Lards,” he says, with no idea how that sentence is going to end or what’s going to be in the middle of it. Lardo raises an eyebrow, but before he can get any further someone is calling his name behind them, and Shitty is obligated to turn away.

 

 

 

 

 

The thing about graduation is that it’s not really a day for the graduate. It is, technically, because they’re all there to celebrate him or whatever, but it’s really a day for everyone the graduate has ever met to announce, loudly and in Shitty’s family’s case expensively, that they have some hand in getting to the finish line. They all keep at it for several hours through dinner, through Chris puking up a bottle (and counting) of Disaronno in the restaurant bathroom, the three (and counting) arguments Shitty’s grandfather starts to pick with his mom, the forty five (and counting) mentions of Harvard Law, Harvard Business School, or how Harvard still should have been Shitty’s first choice. None of them are the people he knows he’ll be missing to death tomorrow.

Shitty doesn’t get back to the Haus until about nine, feeling grumpy, exhausted and like he’s been stretched out of shape and then shoved back into place again a bit haphazardly. The Knight half of the family have been deposited back at their hotel, even Gloria who had been dropping hints about being invited to whatever party Shitty might or might not be attending after dinner especially if his friend Jack was gonna be there, and Shitty and his mom pause on the porch of the Haus for a minute so he can look up at it, all it’s windows illuminated and laughter coming from the inside.

“Lardo wants to challenge you in beer pong,” he says, rapping his knuckles against the white-painted wood. “So consider yourself warned.”

“I’ll take that challenge,” his mom says. “I wasn’t too bad, back in the day.”

“Might even condescend to be on your team, old lady,” Shitty says, and shoves the front door open with his shoulder. “Ey motherfuckers!”

There are a pile of people smashed on the couch and they cheer when Shitty comes through the door. He gets a round of high fives, Lardo’s palm smacking into his with a satisfying sound. Holster starts yelling about shots, pauses midword when he sees Shitty’s mom, then picks up his chant when she pumps her fist. Shitty’s about to join in when he notices that someone’s missing.

“Yo,” he says. “Where the fuck is Jack?” he pauses and looks around. “And Bits? I’m down for celebratory tequila but we’re down two and that ain’t fair.”

“Weren’t here when we got back from our booze run,” Ransom says. “Maybe they’re still at dinner?”

“Did Bitty go with them?”

“No,” Chowder shakes his head. “I walked back here with him but then he left!”

“Okay, okay,” Shitty flips open his cell phone and hits the speed dial. It rings out, kicks over to Jack’s voicemail. “Yo bro!” Shitty hollers. “Get your ass back to the Haus stat!”

“Should we wait?” Holster asks, something in his face suggesting he really doesn’t want to.

“Yeah, probs,” Lardo says slowly.

They all pause.

“Or we could, yknow,” Shitty glances towards the stack of red cups already sitting out. “I mean, neither Jack or Bits are gonna play anyway.”

“Right,” Holster says. “Dibs on first game!”

Shitty practically vaults over the couch to get there first.

 

 

 

 

Jack and Bitty come in the door together fifteen minutes later, as Shitty and Lardo are working on wiping the floor with Ransom and Holster’s pong game. Shitty launches himself back over the couch again, letting Lardo drop the killing shot, to fling himself in Jack’s direction.

“Where the fuck were you?” he asks. “You owe me celebratory graduation shots!”

“I was hoping you’d forget I said that,” Jack groans, shoving him off. “We walked to Faber.” He bites his lip, which is a weirdly bashful expression on his face. Shitty blinks at it.

“Zimmermann,” Lardo calls. “Shits. C’mon. Final showdown. You two versus me and Dr. K.”

“Mother!” Shitty hollers. “Betrayed!” She just laughs. “Jack, c’mon, back me up, please, please, you’re my best friend, you have to have my back here, Jaaaaaaaaa--”

“Fine,” Jack says, cutting Shitty off. “One game.”

Shitty could cry. “You’re beautiful,” he says.

Bitty, who has managed to get into the kitchen and come out of it balancing a pie and a tray of brownies like some kind of tiny gay baked goods angel, starts coughing. Jack crosses the room to grab the tray, and nobody else is really watching but Shitty sees him put his hand on Bitty’s back for half a second. Bitty laughs, his face pink. He’s been watery and frankly a bit wound up all day, but he looks different. Frazzled, sure, which is pretty typical Bitty. But something else too, something in his eyes. He smiles up at Jack, pink-faced from coughing.

“I’m not dying,” he says. “Go on, get your ass handed to you.”

“Hey,” Jack says. “You don’t know that’s going to happen.”

“I do, though,” Bitty, to his credit, manages to look pretty apologetic.

 

 

 

 

 

They do get their asses handed to them. Twice. Then Shitty and his mom beat Chowder and Bitty, and then Dex and Nursey. Ransom and Holster scrape by but get slaughtered by Lardo and Jack, and by that point Shitty calls a cab for his mother and sends her back to her hotel with a piece of pie. Bitty somewhat drunkenly manhandles everyone into the kitchen with the goal of feeding them, and it’s around then that Lardo bumps their elbow into his middle.

“Wanna walk me home?” Shitty thinks something in their voice is a little nervous, but that could just be wishful thinking.

“Yeah,” Shitty says. “Wanna go now?” Lardo nods, and Shitty turns back to the kitchen to wave at Jack and let him know they’re heading out. He pauses to look at everyone clustered in the kitchen.

Holster is singing along to Taylor Swift and Ransom is half laughing half rolling his eyes. Bitty’s leaning over his pie pan, Chowder is laughing at Holster’s antics and Dex and Nursey have paused in their ongoing squabble long enough to help pull plates out of the cabinets, united in the pursuit of baked goods. Jack is leaning against the doorframe, and he nods in Shitty and Lardo’s direction before turning back towards their laughter.

Four years of his life. All the people he loves.

“Shits?” Lardo asks.

“Sorry bro,” Shitty says, and opens the Haus front door.

Campus is loud, but it gets quieter as they walk away from the row of frat houses and back towards the dorms. It’s warm, the edge of summer.

They’ve done this walk a lot, a hundred times maybe, after game afterparties and kegsters and academic all-nighters and long afternoons of doing a whole lot of nothing. It’s become a bit of a habit. They all know Lardo’s roommate but none of the rest of the team, with the exception of Bitty and maybe Jack, know where Lardo’s dorm is, have been inside. It’s kind of a major honor, the privilege to Lardo’s personal space in a way a lot of other people don’t get, their cramped dorm plastered in posters that always smells like coffee and perfume and turpentine. Shitty likes that, knowing that, like he likes knowing that Lardo’s dorm looks a lot like Lardo’s bedroom at home. He never really spent enough time in his own room at home for it to feel like home, and he was never allowed to stick shit on his walls anyway. Lardo’s promised to leave some of his posters in the Haus up.

Neither of them say anything for a while, but eventually Lardo glances over at him and smiles and it’s a weird smile that he’s not familiar with. “So,” they say. “Experiencing any post-grad epiphanies you wanna share?”

“This is naught but my first degree, Lards,” Shitty says, clipping his vowels and shoving his annunciation into his nasal passages in his Dad impression.

“Two, technically.”

“And the humblest of them. By the time I’m finished I’ll have enough to juggle.”

“The Honorable Shitty Knight’s amazing circus act,” Lardo says.

“I’m gonna be a lawyer, not a judge. I’d be a shit judge.”

“Dunno, you’d look pretty fly in those long powdered wigs.”

“Noted,” Shitty says. They keep walking.

This is the last time they’ll do this walk, Shitty thinks. They’ve done it a hundred times. Even if he comes back to visit next year Lardo will be living in the Haus, which is bomb, it’s amazing, it’s the way things should be, but this walk is something they’ve done, just the two of them. Hundreds of times.

“How long is the family vacation from hell again?” Lardo asks, and Shitty groans as he walks, letting his head flop forward so his chin hits his collarbone.

“Two fucking weeks, man,” he says. “Just me, Grandma and forty days of rain. Gonna build an ark. And then drown myself.”

“Just make a break for the ocean and sail towards home,” Lardo says. “Will it really rain the whole time?”

“We went up there three years ago,” Shitty says, “around the same time. Grandpops was thinking about selling the house but I guess he decided against it, don’t know why. I think they were thinking about liquefying some assets in case they really needed to bail Dad out of jail, but then decided keeping their cash tied up in a fucking Victorian manor house was a better call. Fuck if I know. The whole thing looks like some Satanic interior decorator with a Civil War fetish tried to fuck Jane Austen. On an island.”

“Sand in your bits,” Lardo says.

“Point is,” Shitty says, “it rained for two whole weeks. Every damn day. And nobody would fucking leave early, because it was supposed to be fun, right. I played about three hundred games of Scrabble and contemplated the real meaning of eternity and drank so much scotch. It’s ruined for me forever.”

“I know what to get you for Christmas this year,” Lardo says, and Shitty goes to thwap them on the back of the head. They dodge out of the way.

“Some day we’ll all have to go up there and trash it, the house,” Shitty says. “It’s a shitty place for a family vacay but it would be a fun place for a boozy weekend.”

“Fourth of July,” Lardo says.

“Braaaaah.” They keep walking for a while. “When I get back wanna throw Jack a swawesome housewarming party?”

“Does he know you’re gonna throw him a housewarming party?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then of course.” Lardo chews their bottom lip for a second. “Wish you could get out of it, your trip. It’ll be a slow month.”

“Yeah, man, I know.” They’re almost to Lardo’s dorm, and rather than walking on the concrete path they cross the grass side by side. The sprinkler system went off earlier and it soaks into the bottom of Shitty’s sandals. It should feel more like summer, wet grass and the slow burn of tequila in his system and Lardo at his elbow, school done with, vacation on the horizon. Shitty thinks about edges, about endings and beginnings and the jumps you have to make to get from one to another.

“You around tomorrow?” Shitty asks. Lardo shrugs one shoulder.

“Told Mom I’d be home tomorrow morning,” they say. “So I’m catching a bus first thing.”

“Shit, man,” Shitty says, his stomach dropping like an elevator off a cliff. He’d been hoping-- well-- tomorrow’s a new day or whatever, and his family’s taking off, and he’s not leaving until four or five at the latest. The day after that they’re on an airplane.

“Well,” he says. “I should probably, yknow, early bus. Let you go.”

“Guess so,” Lardo says. Neither of them move. The overhead streetlights stretch out their shadows to three times their size, weird and wavery in the midnight air.

“You did good,” Lardo says suddenly. “You know. All this. You did.”

“Eh,” Shitty shrugs, breaking eye contact, going to run his hands through his hair before coming up short because there’s a lot less of it than there was this morning.

“I mean it.”

“Thanks, Lards.”

Lardo smiles, and Shitty lets himself loop his arms over their shoulders and they hop up the few concrete steps to the dorm door together. Lardo waves their keycard at the little plastic detector and the door beeps open.

“Have fun packing your shit,” Lardo says, a little smugly.

“Fuck off, Duan. Going to your mom’s friend’s baby shower is a convenient excuse.”

They stick their tongue out, step through the door, and Shitty almost says something as they go but doesn’t because--

Well.

The door clicks closed and he makes himself turn around and go down the steps back towards the grass. He practically leaps out of his skin when he hears it slide open a minute later.

“Hey, Shits,” Lardo says, their voice quiet but still audible. Shitty stops dead in his tracks, heart suddenly hammering like a drum solo being performed by an asshole on acid. He turns around.

“Yeah?” he says.

Lardo’s silhouetted in the doorway of their dorm building, leaning against the doorknob. He’s ten feet away maybe, but Shitty can feel their eyes on him.

“Catch you later,” Lardo says, after a long minute, and closes the door.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s pretty ironic, Shitty thinks as he walks home. He’s been berated his whole life for not having a lot of patience, by his parents, various teachers, friends, a few exes. He does try, and sometimes he’s alright at it, but at the end of the day the fact is that he’s really bad at waiting, at sitting still, at biding his time or letting things go.

So it’s pretty fucking ironic, Shitty thinks, that he waited on this so fucking long.

 

 

 

 

Most of the lights are off when Shitty slips in through the front door; Bitty’s bedroom window is illuminated and he can hear Ransom and Holster talking in the attic when he climbs up the stairs, unbuttoning his shirt and kicking off his shoes as he goes. He abandons them in a pile next to his bed, just a few more things in the stack of shit he still has to pack. Tomorrow’s going to be hell.

Last night in this bed, he thinks as he yanks off his shirt and lays down. Last night in this Haus. Holster laughs upstairs, loud and distinctive. Down the hall Bitty’s music switches off. The failing A.C. unit, the one with the sign taped next to it saying ‘TOUCH & DIE-- B.K.’ because of Bitty’s habit of turning the heat up when nobody is paying attention, switches on. It’s a low whirring punctuated by the occasional rattle, and in the winter it’s matched only by the way the wind whistles through all the windows of the Haus. Shitty has all these sounds memorized; Bitty humming in the bathroom down the hall, the way the rain sounds on the roof when it’s pouring, how the Haus groans and shifts in the middle of the night. It’s never entirely quiet even when it’s quiet, and it’s rarely actually quiet. Shitty loves this shithole like he’s paying the damn mortgage on it.

He ponders the legal complications of emptying his trust fund to just up and buy the Haus for a while before accepting that sleep isn’t happening tonight. Maybe something he should be worried about. His mom keeps recommending melatonin, which would mean really accepting that he’s a fucking bona fide adult who has to do things like regulate his sleep schedule and shit.

Fuck it, Shitty thinks, and gets up to find his stash.

He’s getting back into bed when Jack opens the door that separates Shitty’s bedroom from their shared bathroom. His face is indistinct, backlist by the too-white light from the bathroom, so Shitty can’t pinpoint his expression.

“Shits, you awake?” Jack asks in a half-whisper.

“Nah, brah,” Shitty says. “Having a hard time getting to sleep honestly. What’s rattling?”

“Can I talk to you?” Jack says, which is. Huh.

“Course,” Shitty says. “I was about to light up, you want in?”

Jack comes into the room, switching off the bathroom light and closing the door behind him. He surprises Shitty by sliding into bed next to him rather than sitting on the corner or in his desk chair. Jack tosses the comforter over both their legs and sits back so his back’s resting against the headboard, their shoulders lined up. He’s wearing a particularly worn Samwell Athletics shirt that has to be four years old; one sleeve is fraying and it’s threadbare around the shoulders.

“Your feet are freezing,” Jack says.

“Get out of my bed,” Shitty says, mangling Jack’s accent as badly as he knows how. Jack snorts but doesn’t say anything, so Shitty thumbs his lighter to light his joint. Jack hadn’t bothered to turn his bedroom light on when he’d come in so the little flame illuminates one side of his face, cheekbone and bright blue eyes lit for half a second until the flame dies down again.

Shitty takes a hit, and Jack surprises him again by snatching the joint out of his hands to stick it in his own mouth. They sit like that for a few minutes, passing it back and forth, and Shitty lets the moment sit even though he really wants to know what the hell is on Jack’s mind, because he knows that Providence and Boston aren’t even that far apart but they’re not across the damn hall from each other.

Jack’s a lot of things; weird, sometimes irksome, sometimes mean, unintentionally funny, smarter than he looks, prettier than any human ought to be, a better person than he gives himself credit for. And he’s Shitty’s best friend, which is still wonderful and hysterical in its strangeness even after all this time. Shitty loves him so damn much, even when he pisses him off, even when he knows it’s hard for Jack to believe it or even want him to.

“What a weird day,” Jack says finally, and Shitty nods in agreement, feeling a little wooly-headed and warm.

“I can’t believe that was, like, it,” he says. “It’s supposed to be this big thing, yknow. I mean, it was! It is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really excited to wipe my ass with a 4-hundred-thousand-dollar piece of paper--”

“Jesus,” Jack snorts.

“But it feels like, oh I don’t know, like all the hard work went into actually getting here and how that it’s here it’s a whole lotta hooplah for nothing. I felt more celebratory yesterday and I didn’t have to wear a dumb hat. My family’s shit, maybe that’s why.”Jack nods, bumps his shoulder against Shitty’s.“The whole day’s been anticlimactic,” Shitty concludes, nodding to himself.

“I kissed Bitty,” Jack says. He says it all in a rush, words stepping on each other’s heels, and Shitty’s everything grinds to a halt.

Foot, mouth. Words, eaten. Holy fuckballs what?

He recovers remarkably quickly, and credits himself on not seizing Jack by the head and shaking him or just opening his mouth and screaming bloody murder. Another day, another situation, that his reaction would probably be both those things followed by throwing himself at Jack headfirst. He does take one very deep breath. “Brah,” Shitty says, which is both safe and completely content neutral. He can’t read Jack’s face in the dark.

Jack doesn’t say anything for a long minute and Shitty starts to worry that he’s going to have to pull teeth in this conversation, when he speaks again. “I just,” he says, and falters a little. “I thought about not doing anything. Letting it go. But.”

“But.” Shitty says, as un-naggy as he can manage.

“But I had to know,” Jack says. “I couldn’t just let this all be over without knowing.” He shifts a little so he’s leaning against Shitty’s shoulders, like he’s looking for support.

“Yeah, man,” Shitty says, and switches the joint to his left hand so he can loop the right over Jack’s shoulders. “Is it completely pushy and obnoxious if I ask what his reaction was?”

It hardly needs asking, because Shitty saw them come back into the Haus, because Shitty saw the look of bewilderment-meets-delight on Bitty’s face. But Shitty’s honestly shocked that Jack is telling him this much to begin with, because a week ago he’d have laughed at the thought of Jack tell him about how he feels about Bitty. Shitty picked up on it, the last few weeks. Lardo, he thinks, has noticed it for longer.

“Surprised,” Jack says, which makes Shitty want to laugh except for the fact that he still can’t really read the tone of Jack’s voice. No kidding. Shitty’s not sure if he can think of anything Bitty would have expected less. “But, uh, in a good way. Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

“What,” Shitty turns to look at him. Jack looks sheepish. “You smooched him and booked it? Honestly? Come the fuck on, man!”

“No,” Jack says. “You called me.”

“Ah, shit,” Shitty winces. “Guess I did. Sorry bro.”

“It’s okay,” Jack says. “If it hadn’t been you it would have been something else. That’s how this whole day has been. I thought I’d left it too late, missed the opportunity.”

A whole lot of things are rearranging themselves rapid-fire-style in Shitty’s head. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s developing a headache. He also feels a bit like he’s going to be sick, but he doesn’t think that’s related to Jack’s announcement. Not directly anyway. Vertigo, maybe?

“Feel that,” he says, a little numbly.

Jack turns his head to look at him, but doesn’t say anything at all, which Shitty is half really grateful for and half a little mad about. If he had, a question, “Did you also?” then maybe Shitty would derail this conversation to make a phone call, even if it is the day after graduation now because it’s nearing 1 a.m.

But he doesn’t, because this is about Jack right now, Jack, and also Jack and Bitty, which seemed bananas a year ago, a month ago, but right now doesn’t seem all that crazy.

“You gonna wait and see?” Shitty says.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “Guess so. It could be a long summer. But we’ll see.”

“I think,” Shitty says, and Jack turns all the way to look at him, like he’s nervous and has to look Shitty in the eye. Shitty lights his lighter again, exhales smoke. “I think you should do what you gotta, him too, no pressure, see what happens. But I think it’d be good.”

Jack stares at him for a second, then he nods in the dark and twists back around so their shoulders are touching again. “Okay,” he says.

“Love you, brother,” Shitty says. “And you can tell Bitty no hard feelings.”

“Huh?”

“Yknow, not like it was a competition, I had my shot, and if I had to lose you to someone I’m glad it was Bitty. But if you take that picture of me outta your wallet I’ll resort to fisticuffs.”

“Never,” Jack says, and Shitty’s heart swells. “I mean,” Jack continues. “I can’t get it out. You glued it in there, man.”

“True love is sticky and kind of annoying,” Shitty says. “It’s symbolic.”

“I’m going to start writing down the things you say,” Jack says. “And put them in greeting cards.”

“That’s a lucrative career right there! Fuck the NHL,” Shitty says. Jack rolls his eyes, but lets Shitty sling his arm back over his shoulders again, so that’s alright.

 

 

 

 

When people meet Shitty they tend to think he’s impulsive, which isn’t always wrong but isn’t exactly right, either. He can be impulsive, sure, sometimes definitely at times when he shouldn’t be, spontaneous and kind of stupid when the mood strikes him and won’t let him go. His dad likes to throw around the term “risk seeking” in a derisive way. But “impulsive” implies a lack of thinking about the consequences, or foresight, and Shitty thinks about that stuff, sometimes, and sometimes he considers the consequences and he says “fuck that.”

(It’s a novelty kind of thing, really, saying “fuck that” when you’ve been told you have to not say anything at all unless asked to.)

Shitty doesn’t like to let things stay undone. If there’s a thing to do, he’ll do it, just to try it, even if it throws him in the shit later. Because he can. Because that’s what you do. You say “fuck that,” you give it a shot.

So what has the world come to, he thinks, when Jack Laurent Motherfucking Zimmermann the Amazing Constipated Wonder on Skates can get his emotional shit together and kiss the boy before Shitty can.

He thinks about it as he frantically throws the rest of his shit into garbage bags the next morning, and as he waves the Zimmermann’s and various hockey-superstars-turned-uncles off around nine, and as he watches Bitty put some pans and his rolling pin into boxes in the kitchen. Bitty has to wave to get his attention.

“You alright in there?” he asks, and he slides one of the few remaining pieces of graduation pie across the kitchen island towards Shitty, unbidden but not unwanted. Bitty is amazing. He’s a miracle. Shitty has never met anyone else like him and he’s going to miss the squirrely little fucker so much and he will personally kick Jack Zimmermann in the keister if he fucks this up. Bitty looks kind of dazed this morning, and honestly still a bit watery, and true to form despite everything that’s probably going on in his beautiful blonde head he’s feeding other people and asking them how they are. Boyfriend material right there.

“Peachy,” Shitty says, and shoves blueberry crumble into his mouth. “Yo B do you think you can get your mother to adopt me so I don’t have to go on family vacation?”

Bitty shrugs, wiping up crumbs. “She always wanted two kids,” he says. “But you’ll have to learn something about football. And your name would be Shitty Bittle.”

“Bernard Bittle,” Shitty says contemplatively. “Euch. I sound like a supervillain.” He finishes off the pie crust as Bitty blinks at him.

“Wait one hot minute,” he says slowly. “Your name is--”

Shitty winks and books it out of the kitchen to let him process that on his own.

He’s not jealous, he feels obligated to amend as he heads back upstairs to start the next arduous process of hauling all his stuff into the living room. He’s impressed. There was a part of him that honestly didn’t think Jack had it in him, didn’t really want to make it happen, didn’t really care if it didn’t.

And there’s another part, of course, that’s feeling he, Shitty, might have in fact really truly spectacularly fucked up.

 

 

 

 

Packed up, the contents of Shitty's room fit into two suitcases, a hockey bag, several large garbage bags and one very ugly pink duffel that his mother has owned since probably 1977. They get most of it into the back of his car, and his mom takes the rest, because after this obligatory Knight-side-of-the-family vacation is over Shitty's going to crash with her until the lease on his new apartment near the university begins. He's leaving most of his furniture behind, even the beanbag, which he's pretty sure nobody actually wants. He thinks about sneaking it into Bitty's room for kicks, but doesn't have the heart for it. He leaves behind the lawn chairs on the roof too, hopes someone will keep using them next year. 

By five o'clock all Shitty has left to do is peel the Frank Ocean and Gillian Anderson posters off his walls, and when he's done that it all feels very final. The room, usually crammed with clothes and photos and stacks of books and equipment, feels bigger and very plain and alien, not like home at all. Because it's not, anymore. A college room is just a room you rent, after all. 

He stands in the street in the front of the Haus as his mom shoves the stupid pink duffel into the back of her car. The rest of his family took off this morning, as did Jack and Lardo, and Ransom and Holster dragged Bitty out for coffee or something, so it's just them outside. Maybe that's best. He's said his goodbyes to everyone else, repeatedly in some cases; their last roadie, their last game, their last party, their last breakfast all together. Now he's got to say goodbye to this place too.

The first time Shitty had seen the Haus, shitfaced and clean-shaven and impressionable as a freshman, he'd fallen in love with it. It's something he does, fall in love with things right away. For better or for worse (usually, honestly, for worse). It feels warmer and more cared-for now, a little more organized, a little less smelly. When Shitty had first seen it there had been a hole in the downstairs bathroom door, and no kitchen table, and a bathtub in the backyard. No curtains, a huge crack in the glass of one of the windows upstairs. And he'd been head-over-heels, had bent over backwards to find a way to live their his sophomore year, had carved out his space in it and made it his. And now it isn't, anymore. All you can hope for is that the marks you leave behind on something stick around after you're gone.

"Brah," Shitty says. "Thanks for everything." His mom, behind him, doesn't comment on the fact that he's speaking out loud to a house, which is considerate of her.

"It's been real," Shitty says, and he salutes, and he gets into the car. 

* * *

 

Being trapped in a car with his grandparents and dad feels a lot like being trapped in a jail cell, if jail involves James Taylor music, the smell of his grandmother’s expensive cigarettes mixing with her perfume, his dad’s driving and their endless, pointless conversation about the Dow Jones average. Shitty had loaded up his phone with enough This American Life to murder someone, and then forgotten to charge it, so he’s squashed in the back seat of his dad’s car with a button-up shirt and a dead cell phone, debating between accepting the inevitable and just screaming out the window at the top of his lungs.

“So didja know,” he interrupts about halfway through his grandfather’s droning monologue about Apple’s stock, “that your conceptualization of the importance of the stock market in daily life could be, according to McCombs and Shaw’s agenda setting theory, largely overexaggerated by our media system’s consistent focus on economic measurements and, related, its lack of focus on the issues of the working class.”

“That’s what he’s been doing for four years?” His grandfather says, and Shitty sighs.

“Who am I kidding,” he says. “You are the media system. And the stock market.”

“You believe in that? Pseudoscience?” His dad, in the front seat, asks.

“It’s social science, not pseudoscience, c’mon. Economics is, like, basically a made up scientific discipline anyway, I hope you know that. And yes, I do. There’s nothing wrong with believing it.”

“Hm,” his dad makes a kind of disgruntled noise in his throat but declines to argue.

“Believing in nonsense,” his grandfather says, and he might say something else but Shitty doesn’t hear it because a realization hits him like someone’s dropped a fucking house on his head.

Shitty believes in a lot of shit, just by nature. It’s the easiest way to define who you are, maybe, other than the shit you don’t believe in. He believes in aliens, but not so much life after death. He believes in recycling, and donating to charity, and in coincidence but not in fate. He believes a lot of shit about unalienable rights, and collaboration for the common good, in a woman’s right to choose and wearing shoes that are comfortable even if they’re ugly, in legalized marijuana and Bigfoot and that hockey is the greatest sport known to humankind. He believes in the good in people, even when they make it really fucking hard, in doing no harm but taking no shit, and in taking responsibility for things when they’re not going your way.

He doesn’t know if he believes in true love, but he does believe in loving people, and in any case he’s willing to at least give it a shot.

Believing in things means believing in the possibility of goodness, the might-be, the potential for stuff to land butter-side-up if you work your ass for it, the knowledge that people can be better than they are and that you can stop the damn handbasket and turn it around if you want to or even that hell won’t be so bad when you get there. It’s easy to be a fatalist. It’s easy to put yourself first, buy into the system, redo the fucking yacht and not wonder if it’s worth it.

And he’d been going to just let it go, just move past it because he didn’t believe there was anything he could do--

“Aw fuck,” Shitty says out loud,

“Excuse me?” his grandmother says from the front seat. “Language, Bernard, honest--”

“Shut up,” Shitty says, “I’m thinking. I--” He’s having an idea, the kind of idea that he’s usually laugh off in any other situation. The definition of impulsive. But. “Oh, fuck it,” Shitty says.

“Language!” His grandmother snaps again.

“Sorry, Jesus, ah shit, um. Sorry. Dad, stop the car.”

“What? Why?” Shitty can see his dad looking at him in the rearview mirror. “Did you forget something? I asked you to--”

“No, I didn’t forget anything. I forgot to do something. Well. I didn’t forget. I just didn’t. Just stop the fucking car, okay?”

“We’re going to be late.”

“Alright, then I’m getting out,” Shity starts to pull at the latch to the door and he’s not actually going to fling himself out of the moving vehicle like James Fucking Bond or something but he’s apparently got enough conviction in his voice and his sudden movement for his dad to abruptly jerk the wheel and stop the car on the side of the road.

“Car’s stopped,” he says, turning around in his seat to frown. “Can you tell us what this is all about then, or are you just throwing a tantrum?”

“Don’t humor him,” Shitty’s grandfather is tapping his fingers on his knee, annoyed.

“Yeah, I’ll tell you,” Shitty says. He tugs his backpack out from under the seat in front of him. “I’m not gonna go with you on this trip, alright? It’s nothing personal this time, really, and honestly I think both you and I will have a better time this way.”

“If you think I’m driving you back home--”

“No, man, it’s chill. I’ll hitchhike or bus back or whatever.” Shitty isn’t honestly sure what street they’re on but he’ll figure it out. He pops the door open and the rest of his family seems to be too shocked to really move to try and stop him. “You go on, give my regards to the aunts or whatever, tell them my appendix burst or I’m purposefully causing family strife. I don’t care. Have a good time, I mean it.” He steps out of the car onto the side of the road, and they all stare at him.

“Where are you going?” His dad asks.

“Back home, eventually. Look, there’s just--” Shitty exhales, runs a hand through his hair which still feels wrong when he stops at the nape of his neck. “There’s something I really gotta do. Really important. Now jog on, you’re all gonna be late.”

“Bernard--” his dad starts to say, and Shitty closes the car door and starts walking away from them. For about half a second he thinks someone will leave the car and follow him, but nobody does.

It’s not until he hears the engine start that he realizes his house keys and two week’s worth of clothes are still inside the car, and that his cell phone’s dead.

Well.

Fuck it.

 

 

 

 

“Uh,” Lardo says when Shitty knocks in the Duan’s front door. He grins, shoves his hands into his pockets. “Nice button-up. This isn’t Maine, though. You lost?”

“Got a bit turned around, yeah,” Shitty glances down at the shirt, which is a blue one with buttons and a collar. “It’s not that-- wait, shit bro! Nice buzz!”

Lardo puts up their hand to the right side of their head, which is buzzed short. They’ve been growing it out all year, so the rest falls to their shin. It looks hip, asymmetrical and interesting. “Thanks. Did it yesterday afternoon. Dad keeps rubbing his chin on it because it makes a horrible noise.”

“Can I--” when Lardo nods, Shitty runs his hand over the newly shaved part right above Lardo’s ear, hairs soft and prickly. “Tickles,” he says. “Wicked.”

“So what the hell are you doing here?” Lardo asks, wriggling away before Shitty can go in for the noogie. There’s light on inside, and they’re in shorts and a plaid button up, no shoes. Shitty’s just spent way too much time on a bus in uncomfortable khakis and he loves the Duan’s front door with its tidy little flowerbed and welcome mat and button-up-wearing greeting committee more than he loves a whole lot of things right now. “You’re supposed to be on an airplane right now, Shits.”

“Yeah,” Shitty shrugs. “Had a change of heart I guess. As in I suddenly felt a lot less enthusiastic about two weeks on Loonyville Island.”

“Oh.” Lardo stares up at him for a second, opens their mouth to say something and then closes it again. “And my house was your first stop?”

“Or my last resort. Look, Lards,” Shitty glances through the open doorway into the Duan’s house, suddenly worried that he’s disrupting something, or unwelcome. It is almost dinnertime, though the sun is still up, low in the sky and casting long shadows. He can see Lardo’s dad sitting on the couch enthusiastically watching what looks like Wheel of Fortune. So, maybe not. “You doing anything? Wanna, I don’t know, go for a drive? Go kick around somewhere?”

Lardo shrugs. “Yeah, sure,” they say. “Let me get my shoes.”

“And, uh, your car keys,” Shitty says, and Lardo pauses in the process of turning into the living room, and stares at him. “Unless you just wanna walk. My car’s, uh, at home.”

“How did you get here?” Lardo asks, frowning.

“Uh,” Shitty considers making up something but then figures Lardo will see through him. “Took the bus. And, uh, hitchhiked.”

“You could have called me,” Lardo says.

“Cell phone’s dead.”

“Oh my God,” Lardo sighs, and turns around to get their shoes.

Lardo’s mom drives a little tidy green Honda thing, and Shitty has to push the front seat back quite a bit so his legs aren’t squashed against the dashboard. Lardo watches him wrestle with the bar under it with an expression on their face that’s an inch away from laughter.

“Alright, alright,” Shitty sticks out his tongue. “You wanna, I don’t know--” He’s going about this all wrong, showing up without a plan and in a stupid button-up shirt, and it would be easy to just abandon ship and play this whole thing as nothing more than a silly idea that doesn’t weigh anything more. But--

“Food,” Lardo says, and starts the car. “And booze?”

“No argument from me,” Shitty says. “Can we buzz by my house first? I wanna change into something that makes me look less like a square.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t go home to change first and,” Lardo shakes their head, “I don’t know. Charge your phone. Get your car. You’re dressed like Bitty.”

“Fuck you, Duan.”

Lardo grins, and they spend the drive squabbling over The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton vs. The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot, so that’s alright.

 

 

 

 

Lardo’s been to his dad’s house a hundred times and he never fails to feel a little weird about it, a ridiculous kind of embarrassment for something that shouldn’t be embarrassing because it’s not even his. It’s a dumb house, with a long winding driveway and a big yard, a top-rate security system that requires you type a 9-digit code into a gate before you can even drive close to it. Two garages. A pool. It’s excessive, and Shitty’s honestly waiting for the day that it all gets seized by the government for tax fraud or something, and it’s an obvious display of where he came from. He grew up in it, more or less, even though most of his childhood was spent in dorm bedrooms and later in his mom’s neat little place in Cambridge.

“Okay,” Shitty says, when Lardo parks their car in front of the house. The lights are off and the windows look large and cold. “So, uh, they changed all the locks after the last time I broke in but I think I forgot to lock my bedroom window so I can probably climb in if we move the trash can underneath it or you boost me up.”

Lardo pauses in the process of getting out of the car. “Okay,” they say, slowly. “Or we could go in the front door?”

“Can’t,” Shitty says. “Forgot my keys.”

“Forgot them?”

“Left them.” Shitty scratches the back of his neck. “In my suitcase. Which I left in the car. When I left it. Unceremoniously.”

“Oh,” Lardo says. They run one hand over the newly shaved part of their head, looking up at him. Shitty braces himself. “Which window?”

“Huh?”

“I’m not letting you balance on a trash can and there’s no way I’m going to be able to boost you anywhere. So. Which window? You give me a lift and I’ll get in.” They don’t wait for him to actually say anything, just start walking towards the house, and they grin over their shoulder at him as they go.

Shitty’s heart turns over, or something equally ridiculous and poetic. He knows a lot of people, has done a lot of great things, but nothing compares to watching Lardo climb secret-agent style into his bedroom window. They wave at him as they slide inside, and he walks back towards the front door to wait for Lardo to open it.

“Everything echoes in here,” they say when they undo the latch. Shitty closes the door behind him; the house is dark and quiet and it feels very big.

“It always feels like fucking museum in here,” Shitty says, starting in on the buttons on his shirt at the same time he starts kicking off his shoes.

“That’s an insult,” Lardo follows him as Shitty trails towards the stairs. “Museums are supposed to be comforting, or inspiring. Not cold.”

“Lots of stuff you’re supposed to stand around and look at but not touch,” Shitty struggles with his shoelaces then chucks his shoe across the room towards the sitting room. The second one follows a second later.

“Depends on the museum,” Lardo says. “Hey Shits?”

“Yo,” Shitty finishes unbuttoning his shirt and flings it towards the kitchen. “House is mine for two weeks,” he says. “Or until I give up and go crash at Mom’s. Ah shit, should probably call her, let her know I’m not in Maine or dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“Shits,” Lardo leans against the wooden frame that marks the opening from the entranceway to the sitting room, glancing up at the art on the sitting room walls with distaste.

“Phone’s dead!”

“Call your mom, dumbass.” Lardo pauses. “So, are you gonna call me a square if I suggest we scrap our original plans and just stay here?” They’re studying the large, ugly painting of fruit and flowers that hangs over the fireplace in the sitting room with interest that has to be faked because it’s fuck ugly.

“That thing is fuck ugly,” Shitty says, because it needs to be said. “You wanna stay here? With that fuck ugly painting?”

“Less so the painting, more so the cellar full of bottles that cost more than my car.”

“Well,” Shitty pretends to consider it. “Yknow, seeing as nobody’s home I doubt anybody will notice if an ancient and dusty bottle of vino happens to sprout legs and walk off. Not like anybody will ever finish off what’s down there in this lifetime, even my family.” He grins. “C’mon Lards let’s go decide which one’s gonna go missing, eh?”

“After you,” Lardy pretends to curtsey, and Shitty goes through the doorway they’re leaning against, around another hallway into the kitchen, and down a set of stairs into the wine cellar, a detail his dad had added to the house when he bought it. They wander their way towards the back, leaving two sets of footprints in the dust. Lardo peruses the bottles slotted into the wooden rack and Shitty’s chest feels lighter for some reason, though he can’t really explain why. This is the kind of thing they’re best at, a whole bunch of nonsense, long nights that don’t lead anywhere or mean anything except for the fact that they’re happening. The end of college is supposed to mark the end of that kind of shit, or whatever, so maybe he’s not doing a great job of living the post-grad life. He’s set a pretty crappy track record so far, but as he watches Lardo triumphantly hoist a bottle of wine that’s not car-level expensive but is maybe fancy-watch-level, he finds he doesn’t really care.

They pop the cork over the sink in the kitchen and don’t bother to pour it into glasses, and drinking hundred-dollar wine right out of the bottle in this awful house without a shirt on feels sacrilegious in just the right way. Those are moments Shitty likes, moments he would collect if he could. Saying the word “fuck” when you know someone nearby will glare at you. Kissing someone new. Jumping into a cold lake without clothes on. Watching the sun come up. Tequila shots. Reading a book in one sitting.

Small rebellions, that’s the idea. Grinning at your best friend as they drink a very expensive very dry white with both their elbows on the counter of your dad’s kitchen, that counts.

“So,” Lardo says, when they’ve worked their way through about half the bottle, enough that Shitty feels comfortably warm and bubbly inside. “Your fam didn’t drain the pool, did they?”

“Nah,” Shitty shakes his head and points across the kitchen towards the glass door that leads outside. “I mean, they have someone who comes in and cleans the fucking thing once a week. I don’t think he even covered it because, yknow, the concept of manual labor is foreign to him.”

“So,” Lardo hands him the bottle, “it’s not gonna be freezing or something if I decide to go jump in it.”

“No,” Shitty says, “you’re really--”

“Race you?” Lardo says, and before Shitty can even blink they’re running towards the door to the back patio. Lardo pauses in the process of opening the French-window back doors to wiggle out of their shorts, which they leave behind on the kitchen floor.

“Lards!” Shitty shouts and takes off after them, hopping over their discarded shorts and letting the door swing closed behind him. Lardo tugs their shirt over their head a second later, turning around to look back at him with a grin. Shitty almost trips over his own feet trying to get his pants off and by the time he manages to both untangle them, stop laughing and set the bottle of wine down Lardo has crossed the patio and the grass, opened the gate surrounding the pool, and jumped from the side with a shout. There’s a splash as they hit the water, loud and bright in the quiet evening, and their head pops up a second later, hair plastered to their face and eyeliner running a little.

“Move your ass!” Shitty hollers, and cannonballs. The water’s not cold but it feels refreshing, and Shitty lets his feet touch the bottom of the pool before surfacing, shaking water out of his hair. Lardo is treading water a few feet from him, their hair clinging to their chin. Shitty can see their legs moving under the surface, and the pool lights reflect blue and wavery on the underside of their chin and nose.

“Beat you,” they say.

“Beat this,” Shitty retaliates, and to their credit Lardo does start to swim in the other direction, but Shitty catches them by the shoulder before they can get too far. They do manage to smack him pretty solidly on the shoulder as he does. As soon as they’re underwater Shitty swims towards the more shallow end of the pool as fast as he can go, which isn’t all that fast because his swimming technique involves more splashing than it should.

“Dirty!” Lardo shouts, and Shitty knows they are a good swimmer and so it’s no surprise that they close the space between them quickly. He plants his feet on the pool’s bottom as firmly as he can to show that no, he can’t be dunked because yes, he’s above the height of five-five. Lardo just rams their shoulder into him, which isn’t what he’s expecting at all and makes him topple right over onto his ass. He shakes water out of his mustache when he comes back up, and as he does so Lardo spits water in his face. He wipes his face off with his wet hand, shaking his head, and Lardo laughs before paddling towards the deep end again. Shitty watches them for a second before following.

Lardo stops in the middle of the pool, and they take a deep breath and dive under. Their feet pop up above the surface of the water a second later; they’re balancing on their hands. Shitty thinks about just knocking them over, but he changes his mind and holds his own breath then lets himself sink, crossing his legs like a boyscout so he winds up sitting on the bottom of the pool. He opens his eyes as he does and Lardo’s are open too and they look at each other, bubbles rising from the corner of Shitty’s mouth and his eyes stinging. Everything wavers, blue-green and strangely lit, a science-fiction cast of distorted shadows underwater. Lardo’s hair is floating around their face and Shitty’s is too even though it’s short, reflections of each other, upside-down and backwards.

When his lungs start burning he lets go and floats to the top, and Lardo turns upright again too, pulling their wet hair out of their face.

“Go get the booze,” they say, flicking water at him, and Shitty obliges, pulling himself up onto the side of the pool by planting his hands and then swinging one knee onto the wet tile. His boxers, not ideal swim trunks, are sticking to his legs as he walks back towards his discarded pants and the bottle of wine. Rather than get all the way back in the pool he walks toward the other end and sits on the shallow steps, leaning back on his elbows to look up. Lardo swims over to sit next to him one step down, so the water comes up to their collarbones rather than their waist. The sky’s overcast and grey-black, the sun completely gone. It’s always too quiet at this house because the yards are so big, and the neighbors are stuffy and conservative. Usually it bothers him but right now it’s peaceful. The trees surrounding the house are black lines against the grey clouds, framing the space above their heads.

The bottle, half empty, floats on the surface of the pool, and they spend a little time trying to push it back and forth between them without knocking it over. There are a couple close calls, but when they’ve finished it off Lardo lobs it towards the center of the pool where it bobs along by itself like it’s carrying a message.

“Hey Shits,” Lardo says, and they don’t say it very loud but it sounds that way because everything else is so quiet. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” Shitty presses the fingernail of his index finger into the pad of his thumb and flicks water at them, and Lardo doesn’t even retaliate, which makes him pause. They’re studying the cuticles of their own fingernails.

“Why didn’t you go on vacation?” they ask, and it sounds forced-casual, like they want to sound like they’re commenting on the weather.

“Didn’t want to,” Shitty says, and he probably sounds just as bad especially since his pulse is probably going at about a million miles an hour all of a sudden. It’s not a lie, exactly. “It was gonna be a clusterfuck of a time, man, I don’t know. There’s only so much you can take, you know.”

“Yeah, but you--” Lardo studies their fingernail, fiddles with their bra strap, which is probably wet and uncomfortable. “You’re pretty good at that. Dealing with it. A lot better than a lot of people.”

That makes Shitty laugh. “Not according to them. Ungrateful, that’s the word they like.”

“I mean, they’ve gotta be mad at you, right? For this?”

“Probably. They’re always mad at me, Lards, it’s like a psychotic family Russian roulette. They spin a wheel in the morning, that’s my theory.” He adopts a game show host camp voice. “‘Todaaaaaaaay we’re gonna harp on Shitty about his knobbly knees and the fact that he can’t golf!’”

“Shits.” There’s an edge to Lardo’s voice maybe, something unfamiliar, enough to make him pause. They don’t have to say anything more than that. Shitty sighs, flicks more water.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he surprises himself saying it a little. “For the joke, for always-- for deflecting. With the family shit. I’m not that funny.”

“You do alright,” Lardo says, and they move up a step so they’re sitting side by side. Water sloshes over the edge of the pool as they do.

“No, I mean,” Shitty feels like his tongue is tripping over itself but he’s started in on this and he feels like he has to say it. “I am. Sorry. For this year, yknow, I’m sorry it was so weird. That I was. I didn’t mean to be, I just--”

“Shits,” Lardo says again, and he can’t pinpoint the tone of their voice any more than he could before except for the fact that it’s different.

“Okay, listen, I--” Shitty takes a deep breath, watches the empty wine bottle bob. “I bounced because I didn’t wanna spent two weeks with them. I wanted to hang out with you.”

“Oh,” Lardo says. “I would’ve been here in two weeks, you know. I’m not dying, or planning to flee, or move to Canada. Wouldn’t suit me.”

“Well, now you’re making it sound like me dramatically stopping the car and hitchhiking to your house with no keys and a dead cell phone is a little irrational,” Shitty says, aware that he’s deflecting again, maybe.

“Didn’t cross my mind,” Lardo says, so maybe they don’t mind. “You really, uh--” It’s dark and the light is strange and blue but Shitty wants to think they’re blushing. “You actually fled the scene to hang out with me? We hang out all the time, Shits. We have all summer.”

“I also really didn’t wanna go,” Shitty says quickly, “if that makes it less weird. That can be why.”

“No--” Lardo says, so quickly they practically interrupt him. “No, I--” They take a deep breath, and Shitty can see their ribs move for a moment when they do. “I’m sorry too, Shits. For-- I don’t know-- avoiding it. Avoiding things.”

“Don’t be, Lardo, it’s not-- it’s been a weird year.”

“Yeah,” Lardo says. “A weird year. I don’t mind.”

“Huh?”

“That you showed up. I was kind of bummed that you were being drafted into bougie family hell.”

“Okay,” Shitty says. “Good. Did you just call me bougie?”

“We’re sitting in your pool, Shits. Pool.”

“I’m bringing down the system from the inside,” Shitty grumbles, but he’s smiling anyway, and there’s this thing he’s wanted to say all day, all week, all fucking year. Maybe he has left it too long. Maybe he got there right in time. “Can I ask you something, then?”

“Shoot,” Lardo leans back against the edge of the pool and nods.

“This. Today. You--”

“Me?”

“Us, I guess. I-- okay. The reason, the real one, that I recreated the Great Escape, was-- look-- I didn’t wanna say it like this because it’s not a graduation thing, not really, that’s not all it is. and it’s probably what it sounds like--” Shitty winces, because he’s always skipped this part in any theoretical imagining because he’s never known what to say. Still doesn’t. Maybe that doesn’t matter. He struggles on, leaning his elbows forward on his knees and Lardo leans forward too, their drying hair swinging forward so it’s almost close enough to touch. “I didn’t wanna-- I couldn’t let all this go without-- I had to. Before it’s over for real. Do something about this, at least try.”

“This?”

“Us, I guess.”

“You don’t have to say goodbye to anything,” Lardo says. “I thought I would have to, but, maybe--”

“It’s gonna be different--”

“Nothing’s ever the same. That’s just how things are. One thing I learned this year.” They smile, the right corner of their mouth curling up. A movement Shitty likes. One he could look at for the rest of whatever.

Accepting that something is ending means accepting that something else is starting, and they’re both scary as shit. But maybe--

“Bro. You’re better at this stuff than I am,” Shitty says, and he feels light-headed and wired, like there are bubbles in his blood. “I just talk a big talk.”

“You do alright,” Lardo says. Their eyes are soft. They slide across the stone bench so their knees touch, then their thighs. “So.”

“So?”

“You said you wanna do something about this. And that you were gonna ask me something. So. Do something.” Their mouth curves again and Shitty’s head is spinning, and it’s not the booze, it’s not the trees or the night or maybe it’s all those things.

“You-- can I--”

“Yeah,” Lardo says, and they lean forward a little bit more and put their thumb on his chin, then his bottom lip. He’s pretty sure he’s stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped thinking about anything else other than Lardo’s thumb on his bottom lip and their eyes, soft and bright from the weird pool light, and when Lardo doesn’t move he takes their hand to move it, just a little, and closes the space between them. He goes slow, because there’s a part of him that feels like if he doesn’t remember every single second of this it won’t be real, but not too slow, because he’s waited a long time for this. Maybe the right amount of time. Shitty’s going to wake up tomorrow and find his chest is black and blue from the way that his heart is beating up the inside of his ribcage, and he doesn’t even care. He doesn’t want to close his eyes and probably looks cross-eyed, and doesn’t even care.

Shitty traces the line of Lardo’s nose with his, and he can feel them pull in a breath half a second before their lips touch, and then they meet in the middle.

He kisses Lardo and Lardo kisses him back, pressing up into his mouth and sliding their hand up his face and into his hair. Their knees bump and tangle together a little, and Shitty almost slips when he leans his arm against the side of the pool to steady himself a little. Lardo laughs up against his mouth when he does and he can feel it, feel their laugh form on their mouth and he’s always liked Lardo’s laugh but it’s a whole other thing to feel it rather than just hear it.

“Hold still,” they say, their voice soft and filled with laughter. They tug their fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck like they’re trying to make him do just that, and then they kiss him again, and he’s thought about this, a lot, more than you should think about your best friend unless you’re in the habit of kissing your best friends (Shitty’s track record: questionable) and it’s not anything like he thought because it’s better, somehow. Because it’s real. Because they’re here, the two of them and the water and the summer and the sky. He can feel the press of Lardo’s teeth underneath their top lip, their hands small and firm and warm on the bare skin of his shoulder, their laugh.

Lardo shifts a little, pulls back to look at him and then, almost decisively, slides their leg over his knee. They link their fingers behind his head and Shitty’s looking up at them a little. There’s a decisiveness in Lardo’s movements that seems to suggest they made up their mind, that they’re waiting for him to protest, or for this to feel weird. Maybe it should, Lardo mostly naked practically in his lap. But it doesn’t.

Shitty leans up to kiss them, moves his arm to trace the line of their collarbones, and slides backwards on the slippery tile again, smacking his head. Lardo starts laughing, and then starts apologizing for laughing, and he’s laughing too even as he’s rubbing what will probably be a sore spot tomorrow.

“Maybe we should--” they say, pointing towards the door to the house, and that implication’s a whole new thing that Shitty can’t say he hasn’t thought about.

“Bro,” he says slowly, rubbing the back of his head as Lardo gets up and steps out of the pool. He gets distracted by the way the water runs in drops down the back of their legs for a second. “Bro. You want--”

“I asked, didn’t I?” Lardo starts walking towards the door that opens from the patio to the kitchen, and Shitty almost slips again following them. Lardo pauses at the door and he thinks he’s waiting but then they turn around and frown.

“Does this lock?” They say.

“Ah,” Shitty says. “Fuck. Ah, fuck. Yeah. Shouldn’t have let it close. My keys are--”

“Still in the house?” Lardo peers a little forlornly through the glass.

“Yup.” Shitty feels the edge of laughter creeping into his voice but he wrangles it in, because of course, of course. “Uh. I can pick the lock, if you’ve got a bobby pin or a screwdriver or something.”

“Where? In my bra? You’d see it.” The expression on Lardo’s face is a little wicked, and maybe Shitty will just break a window. Is it possible to be cockblocked by your own incompetence?

“Your car? We can hop the fence.”

“My keys are--” They point through the glass at their shorts.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Well we can--” Lardo’s voice cracks into laughter for half a second, “fuck. We can walk to your neighbor’s and ask to borrow their phone to call a locksmith? Or my dad?”

“No! Both my neighbors and your dad will murder me! And when my parents find out they'll bring me back from the dead to murder me again! They'll string my oozy corpse up as an example to show generations of future Knights what happens when you fly off the rails!” And that’s that. Shitty really starts laughing. Dripping wet, in his boxers, locked out of his house and trying to hook up with his best friend. Once he starts he doesn’t seem to be able to stop, and Lardo holds out for a few seconds before joining in, bending over to put their head in their hands.

They get a grip first, and Shitty is still giggling when they say, “Well, I’ll just go in the window again--” which makes him snort, until he’s struck with sudden inspiration.

“Wait! I’ve got a better idea. Unless you really wanna scale the wall in your panties.”

“I’m open to other options, yeah.”

“I didn’t lock the Prius when we left this afternoon.”

“Oh, Shits,” Lardo says.

“Don’t ‘oh Shits’ me. It’s gonna save our asses from getting arrested for public indecency, alright? Garage door opener.”

“Oh, Shits,” Lardo says, with a smile this time, and together they dash towards the gate that leads from the backyard to the side of the house and then the front, where the Prius is parked, which involves running over a lot of gravel in their bare feet, which is less than awesome. They manage to wriggle open the latch on the gate that separates the front yard from the back, and Shitty is relieved by the fact that he did remember correct and that the car is in fact unlocked. It’s still crammed with a lot of his stuff that he never bothered to take inside, and Shitty hops into the front seat to hunt around for the plastic garage door button, which he usually keeps clipped to the window shade. Lardo sits in the passenger seat, and they’re both dripping chlorine water into the car but he doesn’t really care. It’s a ridiculous car, a gift from a few years back that feels more like a punishment because it’s power blue. Gets okay gas mileage but it’s cramped and everyone sees it coming from a hundred miles away.

“Looking for this?” Lardo says, and when Shitty looks up from digging around under the seat they’re holding the garage opener in one hand. They’re smiling a little, cocking their head in a way that suggests that this is a challenge.

“Lardo Duan,” Shitty says, marvelling. “Is that a line?”

“Might be,” Lardo says, so Shitty is obligated to lean across the space between the two seats to wrestle the plastic button from their hand. Lardo leans back a little, holding it up and behind their head, so Shitty winds up practically in their lap. He manages to catch their wrist and snatch the garage opener from them, and he’s pretty sure it’s only because Lardo lets him take it because half a second later they’re sliding their hands down his chest and over his hipbones.

“It was,” they say. “A line. That alright?”

Shitty decides that kissing them is a better answer than actually saying anything, and so he does. He pauses for half a second to move the rest of the way into the passenger seat, bracing his arms on either side of Lardo’s head where it’s resting on the headrest so they’re looking up at him. When Lardo kisses him it’s harder, with purpose, and they tug on his bottom lip with their teeth a little which he likes, like, a lot. He pulls away to follow the underside of their jaw with his mouth, and Lardo traces the length of his spine with their nails and shoves one of his knees aside a little to slide their legs in between his, pulling at the waistband of his boxers so their hipbones are touching, their legs tangled up. The door handle is digging into his ribs and he doesn’t care. Shitty’s kissing Lardo’s collarbone when they grind up against him and laugh, and he feels like he’s about two minutes from losing his mind.

Shitty hasn’t made out in a car like this since he was in highschool, seventeen maybe, summer visits to his ex-girlfriend’s house in Rhody where they’d sneak out to switch off going down on each other when her stuffy conservative parents were asleep. He feels a little like he’s seventeen, out of control of his body and head-over-heels, not sure what to do with his hands. He tugs his fingers through Lardo’s hair, follows the line of their shoulders, the curve of their stomach. It all feels novel, new and wild and terrifying, but real and right, the pressure of their knee against his, the press of their mouth and their smile against his, the catch in their throat when he slides down the strap of their bra to kiss their shoulder.

He’s also pretty sure that if they don’t slow this down he’ll come in his pants, which is also something he hasn’t done since he was a teenager, and is a spanner in the works he really doesn’t want to have to explain.

Even so, he’s surprised when Lardo suddenly pulls back a little and clears their throat. They’re breathing hard, which is gratifying, flushed along their cheekbones.

“Shitty,” they say, and bite their lip. “Listen, I can’t hook up with you--”

And that feels like someone just thwacked him hard in the middle with a tire iron or a mace or something. He’s almost sure he’s gonna vom, which would be embarrassing as he’s still leaning over Lardo, and if there’s anything less dignified than making a fool of yourself in your underwear with a hardon, it’s puking while doing it.

“Okay,” he says quickly. “Okay, that’s. You gotta. You should do what you wanna do, obviously, I’ll-- uh--I’ll--”

“-- in this Prius.” Lardo finishes. “I can’t do it. I have some dignity.”

“I-- what?”

“I mean, you have to ask yourself, right? Am I the kind of person that’s okay with being fucked in a Prius?’”

“What kind of person is okay with being fucked in a Prius? I mean, uh-- not that I-- wait a hot dang motherfucking second. You’re fucking with me.”

“Yeah,” Lardo grins. “I’m fucking with you.”

“Warn a bro, wouldja? Baby Jesus on a pogostick, I thought I was gonna shit my pants! No fucking pun intended.”

“Shitty,” Lardo is laughing. “You’re real bright and sometimes you’re a real fool, you know that? You really thought I was going to give you the boot? Out of your clown car?”

“We’d be at a strategic disadvantage in this clown car anyway,” Shitty says. “Unless you wanna do it on the hood.”

“I’ll pass. Also, nix the Baby Jesus dirty talk in the future, huh?”

“I’ll consider it,” Shitty says. “Lardo.”

“Shitty.”

“Do you wanna go inside and do this on a bed, maybe? That seems like a better place to start.”

“I wasn’t gonna say no to the kitchen counter,” Lardo says, and hits the handle on the door it pops open. “But yeah, that sounds chill.”

They don't really make it all the way up the stairs. 

* * *

 

 

 "Dude," Lardo says, as they watch Shitty rummage around with one of the drawers of his childhood desk, which is where he hides a pipe (green glass with ladybugs) and an emergency stash for really dire family emergencies. The drawer's stuck pretty badly and he feels kind of silly yanking on it butt naked, but no sillier than how he's felt all day. 

It's not like he's not usually doing silly things butt naked anyway. 

"What?" Shitty finally gets the drawer, and he turns around the look at Lardo who is lying in their side in his bed looking at the stack of books he's got crammed into the bedside table. Gloria Steinem, and a few more Star Wars novels than he usually shows people. 

"That was-- I-- well. I'm running out of excuses for why we didn't do this a while ago." 

"What, you thought it was gonna be bad?" Shitty is almost offended. "I'm not a novice, yknow. I'm alright at this shit. I can provide references and everything." 

"No, no," Lardo reaches for the pipe and he lets them take it. He watches them pack it with a few confident movements, quick clever fingers. "I thought it was gonna be weird. That if I let it happen I'd regret it right away after, I dunno." 

"And?"

"Not so much. Give me your lighter, man." Shitty hands it over too and sits down on the edge of the bed, and what he hopes is a respectable distance because he's not positive where this is going. "I was almost ready to just, I don't know. Try and forget it. Or live with it."

"It?"

"Us."

"I'm pretty sure my head was gonna just fly right off," Shitty says, watching the smoke curl up around Lardo's face. "Because I wasn't sure what to do. I'm not good at-- fuck. Yknow, sometimes I'm freaked that I'm only sure I want to do things when someone really doesn't want me to do them."

"Shitty," Lardo says. "I really don't want you to get your ass over here and smoke this bowl with me." 

"Nah," Shitty says. "Move your ass over." He slides up the bed to lean back against the pillow, and Lardo passes him the pipe and the lighter, bumps their knees into his. It's comfortable. They've been here a hundred times. They've never really been here before, like this. 

"Do you know what I think?" Shitty says. 

"What?"

"That my dad is gonna have my ass on a platter." 

"Oh, so they're cannibals now?" Lardo asks, and ducks when Shitty tries to hit them with a pillow. They scuffle for a few seconds before Lardo grabs it, and when they try to smack him with it he yanks it a little so they hand with both their elbows in his stomach. They look at each other. 

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Shitty asks. Lardo shrugs. 

"Got no plans. Why?"

"Wanna get baked and hit up the natural history museum?"

"Shitty Knight," Lardo smiles, and that smile has promise in it, and summer, and tequila shots and late nights and quiet rebellions. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"Might be," Shitty says. Sometimes things have to end for other things to get started, he thinks. Eat my ass, Harvard Law. 

Lardo moves a little so their head is resting on his arm. Their hair, the newly shaved part, tickles. "Know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think it's gonna be a good summer." 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the title comes from 'having a coke with you' by frank o'hara
> 
> this fic is the kind of rambly self-indulgent nonsense that i live on, and i've written no less than TWO other shitty/lardo get-together fics that are all about this length. i guess i'm a one trick pony, but it's a great trick, & a great pony (i hope). i didn't intend for this to be all that long, & it was going to involve a lot more road-tripping around & breaking into hotel pools, but there's already an incredible road trip post grad fic out there & i couldn't resist writing a scene where shitty has to break back into his own house in his underwear, so. 
> 
> i've been interested in writing nonbinary lards for a while, & this time around i did it for cait [punkpadfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkpadfoot/works), which i guess just shows that even when i am not actually writing things for cait i am actually writing things for cait. they're a horrible enabler & my best friend & i hate them. 
> 
> i hope you like it! tell me what you thought here or on tumblr (shittybknights.t.com)


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